Under John Calipari, Kentucky Basketball has enlisted some great wings. Who is the best small forward of the past decade?
This is the third installment of a series of articles called the “The Godfather Lineup,” where I’m going to enter my very own hindsight matrix and look back at 10 incredible years of Kentucky Basketball with John Calipari at the helm, ranking every player at every position (small forward this time) in an attempt to assemble the greatest possible roster of Calipari-era players. The Godfather is reviewed as the greatest movie of all time. How fitting. Kentucky is the greatest basketball program of all time. Two GOATs, and I’m combining them.
The thing about The Godfather which captivates me more than anything else is the cast. It might be the greatest cast of all time. If you were to time travel back to the 1970s and select a perfect roster of actors for a brand new movie, I’d say everyone’s list would closely resemble The Godfather’s ensemble. Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duval, and John Cazale are the main five. Like a starting five, if you will. Look, this by no means is a list of the top five stars in 1972, but there are a few stars and some perfect complementary pieces. In basketball, you can’t just throw five of the greatest players of all-time out on the court and call it the best team ever. Chemistry matters. Fitting multiple different players’ games together matters. Starting Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar together would be disastrous. You need players capable of fitting perfectly together on a court for 40 minutes. Like the 70s produced with The Godfather, I’m combing a decade of greatness (in Kentucky Basketball) in hopes of finding the perfect lineup. You can play along by voting on the poll at the end.
I settled on a tier of 4 that I decided were just better than the rest. Here they are, in order. Remember, small forward rankings are based solely on their time with the Kentucky Basketball program.
1. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist
Kidd-Gilchrist‘s lack of star power in the NBA may lead you to remember differently but MKG was a wrecking ball two-way player in college and every bit worth his draft position at second (behind teammate Anthony Davis) based on his collegiate performance. From the moment he stepped foot Rupp Arena, MKG was an elite defensive presence. It wasn’t because of eight-foot wingspans or gaudy vertical leaping ability. He was a bulldog. Kidd-Gilchrist never took plays off and he was the embodiment of hustle. If Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was playing basketball, you can guarantee he’d be drenched in sweat after five minutes. 100% effort 100% of the time.
And he won a championship. MKG is simply a winning player. There is never an instance where Gilchrist has a negative impact. He is playable in any situation because of his defense and relentless mindset. It’s unmatched competitiveness, something you can’t train for or try to develop–an innate characteristic. MKG was born having to prove himself everyday and scrap for whatever he could get. He scraped up a title during his journey. BBN is forever thankful for his contributions to the Kentucky Basketball program.
Reasons to pick MKG: legendary hustler, elite defense, off-the-dribble scoring, EFFORT, heart of a champion
2. Kevin Knox
Often times, players in the Calipari era are tied at the hip to the year they played. And being the star on a bad team sometimes tags that player with critical review. You won’t find a soul who will mutter a bad word about someone on that 2012 national championship team but there’s an ocean of complaints about guys like Archie Goodwin, Hamidou Diallo, etc. Guys on the teams who vastly underachieved. Not necessarily their fault but their blame no less. Knox is kind of like that. Everyone remembers Kevin Knox fondly but when the conversation addresses his time at Kentucky it’s hard not to feel let down, especially given the way the tournament unfolded in our lap that year.
But, with Knox, you have a college star. The inconsistencies with Knox were painful in 2018 but there’s no denying he was a star for us. When a bucket was needed, Knox was generally the number called on to make it happen. I think the case for picking him in your Godfather lineup rests in a comeback victory over West Virginia on a dreary January Saturday in Morgantown. Down 17 and completely disorganized on both ends of the court, Knox caught fire. The 6’9 forward was finally aggressive. Drives to the basket, finish through contact, even drawing enough contact to earn a trip or two to the free-throw line. I remember thinking oh, so this is the lottery pick on our team. He morphed into everything Kentucky fans hoped he’d be coming into the season.
Even though Knox was flaky from an aggression standpoint, and he floated in and out of games, and he never really found consistency, 6’9 forwards who can match Malik Monk shooting outbursts are incredibly rare. Knox was a powerful but raw basketball talent. We just caught him early in his career. But the peaks stretched into the clouds and the valleys were pitch black.
Reasons to pick Kevin Knox: length, versatility, guard in a forward’s body, mid-range & three-point shooting, heat check potential
3. Darius Miller
The Kentuckian. I know Miller is going to win the poll here in a minute. It will be ludicrous but that’s Kentucky fans for you. We love our own kind. Give us the small forward from rural Kentucky rather than the flashy star from California. The midwest embodies state heterophobia in college sports so perfectly. Homegrown players will always receive more love than everyone else. Miller embodies that persona to its fullest extent. Do you even remember: he came off the bench. Darius Miller, a beloved treasure and fondly cherished piece of the 2012 title team came off the bench. Some will convince you he’s the reason Kentucky won the championship. Not true. Let’s bestow that honor properly and acknowledge Anthony Davis and MKG as college basketball kingpins for the year they were here. Miller, on the other hand, was great but ultimately just a role player on one of the century’s greatest college basketball teams.
However, I’m including him in this list and making him eligible for the Godfather lineup because of that corny Kentucky-proud mantra from just a couple seconds ago. If you want the most authentic Kentucky basketball conglomeration of players, you need someone homegrown. While everyone else from Kentucky wiped away tears as the Wildcats won their eighth title in 2012, Miller performed as the state’s heartfelt representative, granting every 12-year-old Kentuckian’s dream. SO, let’s hear it for the kid from Maysville.
Reasons to pick Darius Miller: shooting, basketball IQ, solid defender, heart of a champion, from Kentucky
Who is YOUR favorite Kenrucky Basketball small forward?
Comment below and email us with any thoughts you have at AlexWeberWBN@Gmail.com